Hey everyone! First off, a huge thanks to everybody who attended this year's EB FunFest, which I hope you all enjoyed. I'm Jeffrey, and I'll be directing in lieu of Jon. Without further ado, I'm excited to invite all of you to our third annualEAST BRUNSWICK BEARS TOURNAMENT!

Date: April 6, 2019

Time: Registration will open at 7:45, and the moderator meeting will be at 8:45. You must arrive by 8:30.

Packet: NAQT SCT (Division II) - Bear in mind that this packet is more difficult than regular IS sets, and that this tournament is largely intended to be in preparation for nationals (HSNCT or PACE NSC).
A sample can be found here.

Location: East Brunswick High School (380 Cranbury Road, East Brunswick, NJ)

Format: Currently the field cap is set at 28 teams, which will be expanded if necessary.
For now, there is a maximum of 3 teams per school limit, but it is possible that we might increase this if the field is expanded. Additional teams will be put on a waitlist. I'll be updating registrations on this thread as they come in, so please check in a couple days after you have registered.

Rules: As this tournament is only a few weeks before HSNCT, we will follow all standard NAQT Rules. For timing, however, we will use 12 minute halves, as opposed to the 9 minute halves at HSNCT, to account for the difficulty of this set. There are no computational math tossups or bonuses in this set.

Lunch: If you wish to order pizza and/or soda, there is a field in the registration form to order. There is also a Chipotle, Halal Guys, Sarku Japan, Smashburger, and Pie Five all within a walking distance from the school, as well as many nearby fast food options on Route 18.

Distance Discount: With this tournament we aim to maintain a diverse nationals preparation atmosphere, and we'd absolutely love to have strong teams from other regions come to compete in our tournament! Thus, we will be continuing our travel discount from last year - $10 off per 100 miles traveled by a team one way, according to Google Maps, although the minimum of $50 per team still applies.

Payment Information:
First team: $80
Subsequent teams: $70
Minimum fee per team: $50
Large pizza pie: $11
12 oz. Coca-Cola: $1.50
Experienced moderator (up to 2): -$10
Buzzer set: -$5
Distance discount: -$10 per 100 miles traveled one way according to Google Maps
Please bring either cash or a check written out to East Brunswick High School to check-in.

3/29 ATTENTION ALL:
As of today, only 9 teams are registered to participate in our tournament. If we do not have 12 teams by the end of this weekend, we will have to cancel the tournament. Please, if you are interested in participating, fill in the form below ASAP!

4/2 ANNOUNCEMENT:
Huge thanks to everyone who signed up, we will be running the tournament this Saturday!

Why is a school that last competed at a pyramidal event in 2014 signed up for a pre-nationals tournament loaded with some of the top teams in the country and held on a college set?

[EDIT: They have apparently played a couple of times more recently, but only on IS-A sets; thanks to NAQT for making searching for QB stats much more annoying these days by not letting NAQT results show up on the hsquizbowl search via hdwhite.org!]

The "new/less experienced teams showing up in a loaded field to get stomped" phenomena has happened time and time and time again in NJ and NYC this year (as well as in other top-heavy circuits).

This is a bad trend. It needlessly discourages new schools and schools transitioning from Jeopardy! and local competitions. New teams ideally need to be competing against other new teams on easier questions than this.

Please, TDs, be explicit about the difficulty level of a set and the level of the teams competing. Do your best to have a real JV/novice division to direct new schools to. I know in some cases teams still might not be discouraged, but I get the distinct impression that a lot of schools just don't know what to expect and that there aren't that many events designed for true newbies out there (PRINT at Princeton being a good example of an exception).

Last edited by cchiego on Fri Mar 29, 2019 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

For what it's worth, some of the schools in NJ I emailed this year about coming to good qb tournaments had told me that one of the reasons they stopped coming to events was that they found the matches too difficult (i.e. the other teams were far better than they were comparatively, not that the content itself was too hard).

I agree on this point strongly; a college difficulty pre-nats tournament seems like a bad idea for a new team. And from what I personally can do, Hunter has consciously tried not to have new teams' first experiences to be with Prison Bowl, for obvious reasons.

I just wanted to not that two of the three examples above are not great: 1. a team at Hunter SCOP Novice (which was in fact intended for new teams/schools both in difficulty and teams, although surprisingly good teams have played recently despite the eligibility rules) and 2. a team that chose to play in the national division and got stomped there despite there existing a standard division at that same tournament. Just pointing out suboptimal examples, but of course the point is still very good.

Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War wrote:I just wanted to not that two of the three examples above are not great: 1. a team at Hunter SCOP Novice (which was in fact intended for new teams/schools both in difficulty and teams, although surprisingly good teams have played recently despite the eligibility rules) and 2. a team that chose to play in the national division and got stomped there despite there existing a standard division at that same tournament. Just pointing out suboptimal examples, but of course the point is still very good.

I think we have a different conception of what "novice" means.

A tournament with many players (if not the full lineups) from the regular A-teams of East Brunswick, Ridgewood, "West Egg", "Tenafly, Hunter, etc. is NOT a novice event. You might technically call such a thing a JV tournament or division depending on class eligibility, but it's not a novice division.

A similar problem plagues other "novice"teamsaround the country. To be clear, I am not saying that these teams were "ineligible" using the rules in place at these events, but rather that the concept of a "novice"-eligible team might need some reworking (or at least another division for "true novices").

The rise of Middle School quizbowl has also helped lead to 10th graders who have 4-5 years of playing experience at the highest levels. These players are not novices and putting them up against actual new players and schools is not helpful for anyone. Experienced teams and players should be aware of this if they care about expanding the game of quizbowl to new schools.

Furthermore, it's really incumbent on tournament hosts to explain these things in detail to teams who don't know what the many acronyms out there mean and might not understand what it means to register for a "nationals" division (or, in the case here, a "pre-nationals" tournament). I've had to talk to several teams in the past who were attracted by the "qualify for national championship" part of a nationals division but didn't realize the level of the teams they'd be playing and were much happier in the standard or novice division.

A tournament with many players (if not the full lineups) from the regular A-teams of East Brunswick, Ridgewood, "West Egg", "Tenafly, Hunter, etc. is NOT a novice event. You might technically call such a thing a JV tournament or division depending on class eligibility, but it's not a novice division.

This situation was not supposed to happen, since

Experienced teams and players should be aware of this if they care about expanding the game of quizbowl to new schools.

We had relatively lax eligibility rules to accommodate a wider variety of potential situations, coupled with a strong note for all registering teams to use personal judgment whether to come.

Evidently, that didn't work out. I'm not blaming any team for this; it's understandable that what constitutes a novice may differ with different people's judgment. We'll probably have to make eligibility stricter next year.

And yeah, I really hope that the other team in question didn't not know what they were signing up for in the national division. I hadn't considered that possibility.

(Also, sorry for hijacking this forum; on a more tournament-related note, is there any preliminary field cap for bracketing purposes, seeing as the field is very far from 28 teams?)

Why is a school that last competed at a pyramidal event in 2014 signed up for a pre-nationals tournament loaded with some of the top teams in the country and held on a college set?

Thanks for expressing your concern, but we did explicitly mention in our post that "this packet is more difficult than regular IS sets, and that this tournament is largely intended to be in preparation for nationals." The team should have been aware of the difficulty of the set - it is their responsibility, and not ours, to ensure that they are prepared for the level of the tournament, and not ours to perform a background check. We do our best to inform everyone of all details, but it is ultimately up to their discretion whether or not they should attend the tournament.

The team should have been aware of the difficulty of the set - it is their responsibility, and not ours, to ensure that they are prepared for the level of the tournament, and not ours to perform a background check.

Rules: As this tournament is only a few weeks before HSNCT, we will follow all standard NAQT Rules. For timing, however, we will use 12 minute halves, as opposed to the 9 minute halves at HSNCT, to account for the difficulty of this set. There are no computational math tossups or bonuses in this set.

Given that SCT is supposed to be easier then HSNCT, why is this tournament using longer halves than HSNCT?

Given that SCT is supposed to be easier then HSNCT, why is this tournament using longer halves than HSNCT?

This is mostly due to the quality of our readers. We don't have many experienced moderators coming to our tournament, and many of our school's own readers are underclassmen. As such, we're simply extending our halves to ensure that we get through as many tossups as possible each round.

Given that SCT is supposed to be easier then HSNCT, why is this tournament using longer halves than HSNCT?

This is mostly due to the quality of our readers. We don't have many experienced moderators coming to our tournament, and many of our school's own readers are underclassmen. As such, we're simply extending our halves to ensure that we get through as many tossups as possible each round.

Why is a school that last competed at a pyramidal event in 2014 signed up for a pre-nationals tournament loaded with some of the top teams in the country and held on a college set?

I do remember playing against Morristown-Beard at EB Funfest earlier this year, so they aren't completely out of it.

Please, TDs, be explicit about the difficulty level of a set and the level of the teams competing. Do your best to have a real JV/novice division to direct new schools to. I know in some cases teams still might not be discouraged, but I get the distinct impression that a lot of schools just don't know what to expect and that there aren't that many events designed for true newbies out there (PRINT at Princeton being a good example of an exception).

I agree with your sentiments regarding the lack of novice tournaments in the NJ / NYC area. The Columbia Cup did a good job of including a novice division, and more tournament organizers should follow their lead.

Vishnuu Gopi

Jasper High ‘20, Captain and Club President
Plano West Senior High School '22